Tellie Hawley nodded. “Okay, then, we ask questions and you answer as best you can.”
She nodded and talked. And there wasn’t anything at all new or earth-shattering. Except-
“Adam, did anyone find anything in the hem of my nightgown?”
He shook his head.
“Then he must have found it,” she said. “He let me go to the bathroom. I knew I had to do something. I managed to unscrew one of those enamel bolts that hold the toilet to the floor. I pulled open the hem in my nightgown and worked it in. He must have found it.”
“Yes,” said Hawley, “he found it. He left the toilet bolt in the room, on Agent Marlane’s bed. The techs found it and I read it on the collected evidence sheet-‘one toilet bolt’-and I just forgot about it in all the chaos. Actually when the techs found it, they thought some nurse’s aide had dropped it and they were laughing about it. Well, it wasn’t any joke. That proves conclusively it was the same guy.” He shook his head. “A toilet bolt, a damned toilet bolt.”
“He was taunting us,” Thomas said. He got to his feet and began pacing the long living room. “I wish to God I knew where he was. I’d just put an end to it. Face him, just the two of us.”
Becca said, her voice overloud, too sharp, “No.” And everyone stared at her. “I will not let you face him alone, Father. No way.”
They took a break in the kitchen, drinking coffee. Then Thomas took them to his office to see some of his high-tech goodies. Then they went back to the living room. It was then that Agent Cobb said to Becca, “May we try one more time to put you under?”
She agreed. What else could she do?
This time, though, Agent Cobb handed her a small white pill. “It’s a Valium, to help relax you, to keep you from focusing on something else that might be holding you back. Nothing more than that. You game?”
She took the Valium.
And ten minutes later, when Agent Cobb said, “Are you completely relaxed now, Becca?” she answered in an easy, light voice, “Yes, I am.”
“You’re aware of everything going on here?”
“Yes, Adam is over there staring at me as if he’d like to wrap me into a very small package and hide me inside his coat pocket.”
“What is your father doing?”
“It’s still hard for me to think of him as my father. He was dead for so very long, you know.”
“Yes, I know. But he’s here now, with you.”
“Yes. He’s sitting there wondering if he should let you continue with this. He’s afraid for me. I don’t know why. This can’t hurt me.”
“No, it can’t.”
“She’s right,” Thomas said. “But I’ll deal with it. Continue, Agent Cobb.”
Agent Cobb smiled and patted her hand. “Now, Becca, let’s go back to that night when you awoke to that prick in your arm.”
She moaned, then jerked.
“It’s all right,” Agent Cobb said quickly. “Listen to me now. He’s not here. It’s okay, you’re safe.”
“No, it’s not okay. He’ll kill him. I know he’ll kill him. What am I going to do? It’s all my fault. He’ll kill him!”
Just a slight pause, then Agent Cobb said, “You mean that he’ll kill you, Becca? You’re afraid that he injected some long-waiting poison in your arm?”
“Oh no. He’ll kill him. I’ve got to do something. Oh God.”
“Do you mean he’ll kill your father?”
“No, no. It’s Sam. He’s got Sam.” And then she started crying, deep, tearing sobs that jerked her wide awake. “Oh, no,” she said, staring at all the appalled faces. “Oh, no.”
“It’s all right, Becca,” Agent Cobb said. “You’ll be just fine now.”
Thomas said very slowly, “So that’s what McBride had to say to you. Krimakov kidnapped Sam and had McBride call the director to find you and have you call him.”
“No,” she said. “No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Valium, she thought. She’d just killed Sam, just killed her father, God knew who else, all because of one damned Valium.
Adam was on his feet. “Where’s your address book? I’m going to call McBride, find out what’s going on here.”
“No,” she said, jumping up to grab his arm. “No, you can’t, Adam.”
“Why the hell not?”
25
The room was dead silent.
“No, you can’t have my address book.”
“Fine. I’ll call information.” Adam walked toward the phone. “We’ve got to know exactly what’s going on here.”
Becca didn’t say another word. She ran out of the living room, grabbed her purse from the table in the entryway, and made for the front door.
“Becca! Dammit, come back here!”
She heard Adam yelling but didn’t pay any attention. She heard her father’s voice, then Special Agent Cobb’s voice. She didn’t slow. She was out on the narrow front porch before Adam reached the entryway.
She heard all of them shouting at her, running after her, but she knew she had to get away. No one else was going to die. Not Sam. Not her father. She had to stop it. She didn’t know how she was going to do it yet, but she would think of something. She should have thought of something before-maybe even been a bit on the subtle side. Yes, you fool, you should have just calmly left the living room, pretending to go upstairs or go to the bathroom, whatever. But no, she’d lost it-here she was running away with people chasing her, FBI agents everywhere. But that didn’t matter, either. She had no choice. If she could prevent it, no one else was going to die. She ran.
There were no sidewalks in this very nice neighborhood, just big lawns, thick curbs, and the road. She hit the road. She was fast, always had been since she was on the track team in high school. She put her head down, turned off all the voices, and ran. She felt the breath pumping in and out of her lungs, felt herself filling with energy, with power, expanding, moving faster, faster. Her feet in Nikes were unbeatable.
She ran right into Sherlock. Both women went down.
Becca was on her feet in an instant. “Sorry, but I’ve got to go.”
“Stop her!”
Sherlock grabbed her ankle and pulled. Becca went down on the edge of a lawn, hitting her hip on the curb. A shaft of sharp pain went through her, but she ignored it. She was ready to fight, ready to do whatever she had to, but Sherlock had somehow managed to straddle her, how she didn’t know, but she’d been fast, too fast, and now she was holding her arms down. How could she be so strong when she was so small, hardly anything to her at all? How did she get her in this position so quickly? Sherlock was leaning over her, her curly red hair bouncing against Becca’s face. “What’s going on here, Becca?”
“Get off me, Sherlock. Please, you’ve got to let me go. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You can’t hurt me, so don’t even try. Tell me what’s happened.”
Becca started struggling, but then it just didn’t matter, and she stilled because Adam was there, not even panting hard, standing over them, staring down at her, his hands on his hips. “Thanks for bringing her down, Sherlock. That wasn’t very smart, Becca.”
Sherlock didn’t like this one bit. She looked at all the men running to the scene, even the two dark-suited FBI guys who’d been parked discreetly down the street. “What’s going on, Adam? Oh yeah, given that I could have hurt Becca dragging her down, I’d really better like the answer.” She pulled herself off Becca and slowly got to her feet. She held out her hand.
Becca looked at that slender white hand that was surely too strong, but she didn’t move. She just rolled over away from them, grabbed her purse, and was off again. A sharp pain went through her hip but she ignored it.
She got at least ten feet before two arms went around her waist and she was picked up, twirled around, and thrown over a man’s shoulder. She hit her chin against his back. “Hold still,” he said, and his voice was calm and quiet. Too calm, too quiet.